Nine Things For 2019 To Make Your Fantasy Football League More Enjoyable

1. Live Draft

I don’t know about you but there is something about sitting in front of a laptop watching a clock count down from 1:30 that drives me absolutely bat shit crazy.

Give me a beer and my buddies making a whole day out of our fantasy league draft. Beer pong, wings, pizza, music, and then turning into your own personal GM. Inside the war room that is the fantasy draft is one of the best days of the year. Nothing, i mean nothing, beats a live in person draft.

Not only do you have a chance to verbally abuse your friends for making horrible draft choices, but after its over, you are able to look at each team and trash talk before your friends team is even inputted into the site.

Its like Christmas morning times 10 for me. Months of research comes down to a 3 hour window, where i use my best judgement and try and build a team to bring the green home.

2. Draft Order

Find a way to make figuring out your draft order fun. The first two years of my home league, we just gave it to the reverse order of standings. We soon realized it was boring and decided to spice it up.

We’ve done card picking, with the person who finished 12th gets to choose one card from Ace to King to determine their fate.

We’ve written draft slot order on the bottom of a red solo cup and whichever cup you make is the draft spot you get.

Whatever, you do, make sure its something that you can make fun, one last hooray before getting down and dirty into the team building.

3. PPR

If you are still playing in non-ppr leagues, please stop reading this and continue on your miserable life.

PPR is the new standard. Its where the action is and it gives the player pool a boost. Allowing you to have certain players who would be irrelevant in a non-ppr league relevance.

Being in a non-ppr league is like your husband or wife saying, “Hey i bought some cake”. Then you realize the cake is sugar free carrot.

No one wants that and the people who make that should go straight to hell.

4. Free Agent Budget

Have you ever started a season 3-0 to have you stud go down in week 4??? Then after being higher in the waiver order, don’t even get an opportunity to grab your studs replacement?

Yea, we all have.

That’s why you need to convince your league to swap to Free agent budgeting or FAB.

Each owner gets a set amount of cash to use on bidding on free agents. The money is trade-able and is beneficial if used in the right way.

FAB allows you to blindly bid against all other members in your league for free agents each week. Didn’t bid enough to win a player, that’s OK because you don’t lose the money unless you win the player.

It helps teams who are higher in the standings still have a chance to replace injured players.

5. Trophy/Loser Award

Yea, most leagues are played for cold hard cash for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners.

But, one suggest i would give is to invest in a trophy or a championship belt. We have a WWE like title belt that the winner also gets. He recently wore it while hitting the punching bag at the gym and sent the video to the league group. Needless to say, it didn’t get a warm reaction.

Also, make the guy or gal who comes in dead last a punishment for being so horrible at fantasy. Use the imagination and come up with something no one would want to do. (i.e. Eat a jar of mayo, Eat bugs, stand on a busy intersection with a sign, the possibilities are endless.) We here @F3 do not suggest the whole, league members choose a tattoo. That’s way too far.

6. Teams Locked

This method doesn’t work for dynasty leagues.

But if you are in a redraft league, make sure you lock non playoff teams from making any type of roster moves immediately after the end of the last week of the regular season. There should be no reason a disgruntled owner drops players or whole teams or picks up value options for contending teams.

7. Boot Kickers and D/ST

Kickers aren’t football players. They shouldn’t be allowed to change the outcome of a fantasy football match-up. Why does it make it fair for you to lose to a guy who’s kicker got him 28 points, because that kickers offense is horrific and can’t get it into the end zone.

Also, D/ST is pointless, add another flex spot instead. You don’t get a lot of customization on the bigger sites and the fact that if the teams QB throws a pick-6 you lose points is a travesty.

Add 1 or 2 flex spots and make the roster spots mean something than for a kicker and a team defense.

8. Weekly Recap Videos/Articles

Have either your commish or a member of the league do a weekly recap of the week. This year in my home league, one of the guys started making a youtube recap for the previous week, plus his predictions for the week to come. Some of the most hilarious stuff I’ve seen in a while. It was pretty much him making fun of the members of the league for 20 mins a week. Questioning roster moves, waiver decisions, and so on. It just adds another aspect to keep members of the league engaged during the slow part of the week.

9. End of the Year Awards

Once the season is over, the winner has gloated, the money has been paid. Get the owners together one last time for the season and have them vote on different awards.

Owner of the Year

Bonehead roster move of the year

Worst trade of the season

Again just another thing to use your imagination and help add something fun and different to your league.

I hope that you enjoyed our dive into the different ways to make your league better in 2019. If you haven’t yet please go over and check my twitter page @Frank_Scandurro and also check out the rest of the writers @F3pod. I appreciate you taking time out of your day to read something I love doing and put countless hours into, hoping to bring insight and knowledge to you. From everyone at thefffranchise.com thank you for visiting the site and being a part of our community. Until next time, Peace, Love, and Fantasy BABY!